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The massive bleeding in New Mexico’s oil and gas industry has subsided, thanks to

modest recovery in prices, but producers don’t expect a major comeback anytime soon.

“Overall, the view is still pessimistic, at best,” said Gregg Fulfer, Lea County Commission chair and owner of Fulfer Oil and Cattle Co. in Jal. “People have cut back, and there are no plans that I can see to gear back up yet.”

FARMINGTON, N.M. — As the price of crude oil hovers around $30 a barrel with only two rigs currently running in the San Juan Basin, many local oil and gas companies have responded by laying off employees and struggling to pay down debt.

But not all of them.

Some of the longer-running oil and gas business owners in town say that while no downturn is pretty, they have all posed similar challenges and familiar demands on anyone running any kind of company.

Three Farmington oil and gas company owners who have survived boom and bust cycles — once or several times — share what they’ve learned.

"...In 2008, the first drilling rig went up in Bradford County, a rural river valley of about 62,000 residents in northeastern Pennsylvania. Today, more than 800 wells, like this one owned by Southwestern Energy of Houston, are extracting gas from the undulating hills with views of barns and grain silos.